


Coveting Affection

by Lexzandrihya



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Booker needs Love, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Needs Therapy, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Whump, Booker | Sebastien le Livre-centric, Depressed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Sad Booker | Sebastien le Livre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27619007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexzandrihya/pseuds/Lexzandrihya
Summary: “You’re not real. I’m dreaming, hallucinating. You’re not here. You can't be, I have seventy-five years, eight months, three weeks and four days left. I can't have you. Your touch. Your hugs. Your presence.”“You can my darling, you can. I promise you can.”Emotionally exhausted, and terrified for their relationship, they laid down in a similar manner to which they had at night. This time the older men knew not to let him wake alone.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolo di Genova
Comments: 16
Kudos: 95





	1. Chapter 1

About twenty-five years into his exile, Sebastien woke shaking. Drenched in sweat, he reached blindly for someone, anyone to hold. 

No one was there. 

His control over his emotions had gotten so very weak and he was unable to repress the wave of misery and self-hatred that washed over him. His actions had deprived him of the touch he so longed for.

He could feel the pieces of his heart crumbling further as he thought of his latest dream, or rather, nightmare. 

They were travelling a vaguely familiar road. Andromache, as usual, was driving. Nile sat beside her in the passenger seat. She had control over the music and was playing Adele songs at full blast. Quynh sat behind Andromache, nodding to the beat of the songs, thoroughly enjoying the modern music. Yusuf and Nicolo were flush against each other, holding hands. Something seemed off within the pair, as though they were missing a fundamental part of them, a piece of their soul. 

They were the ones who he considered family; the people that he would do anything for. His actions had caused an alienation, and they were not with him anymore. 

They had left him for his crimes. Unintentional crimes. Crimes which he bitterly regretted. Why had he trusted Copley? 

Wrapping his arms around his chest, he tried to slow his breaths. It took a few minutes, but he finally got his loud pants under control. 

He needed his family so greatly. He craved and coveted their touch. 

Yusuf’s arms wrapped around him in a tight embrace as he greeted him. His gentle kisses all over his face.

Andromache’s familiar clap on the back. 

Nicolo’s arm around his shoulder as he complained about how thin the younger man had become. His ghost of a touch which brought Sebastien so, so much pleasure.

The dreams, like the one he had just woken from, did not help. He still hadn’t met Quynh. It was utterly incapacitating, the pain of watching them live, of watching Yusuf hug everyone. Andromache hold Nile in a way she had never him. Nicolo making Mac and Cheese even though his Italian heart could hardly stand the sacrilege; it reminded him of a time when he would make Carbonnade Flamande just to see Sebastien smile, even though he could hardly bear it. 

Clutching his head in his hands, he sighed. Sleep would not come back to him tonight. 

He went into the toilet, washed his face and stepped back out. Grabbing a book as he walked past the shelf, he almost tripped at the sight that awaited him down the stairs. 

His family stood at the base of the steps. They hadn’t yet noticed his presence. 

He turned sharply and ran, as silently as he could, back into his room. He threw his clothes into his duffel bag before climbing out the window. 

That was when he was caught. 

Yusuf and Nicolo entered the room joking about some inconsequential matter just as the younger man was preparing to jump down without attracting attention. 

“Booker?” 

Sheepishly looking at them, he said, “I’m just leaving. Sorry for the bother.”

Eyes wide in surprise at the physical state of his the younger man, Nicolo replied. “No. Don't go. Please… stay.” 

“But the-”

“Stay.”

Cautiously, the Frenchman began to climb back through the window. 

Yusuf gave a small smile before walking towards him and wrapping his arms around the younger man. “It’s good to see you, Sebastien.” 

His arms remained limp at his sides as he finally received the touch of another human being. 

“Stay with us?” Yusuf whispered in his ear. “Please Ya Rouhi.”

Sure that he would regret agreeing, but desperate for affection, Sebastien nodded as he melted into Yusuf.

As he laid down with the two men, he marvelled at how the cold bed suddenly felt so much warmer. 

That was the last thought which came to him as he fell asleep sandwiched between the two men who held his fragmented heart.

It was a dream, he understood as he woke the next morning to cold sheets and an empty bed. They were never there. He, again, had hallucinated their presence. 

It had felt so real. He could have sworn that he had felt their arms around him as he slept more tranquilly than he could remember. 

Why did his mind torment him so? It was bad enough that he would not be able to feel their embrace for another seventy-five years but to feel it ever so briefly through the abysses of his memory, was an anguish more than he could take. 

He could not take it anymore. In a fit of pain-induced fury, he punched a hole through the wall. 

The commotion that it caused was loud and could be heard very clearly on the first floor, where the immortals sat talking about Sebastien, his crimes and his exile. 

Startled by the loud noise, the immortals rushed up to find Sebastien repeatedly punching a rapidly crumbling wall with a force that his thin, malnourished body did not seem capable of producing. 

“Sebastien! STOP!” Yusuf yelled as he ran forward and grasped the Frenchman’s shoulders and pulled him close the taller man’s back to the older man’s front. 

“No, no, let me go. You’re not real. You’re a figment of my imagination. Leave me alone. PLEASE!” Sebastien struggled against Yusuf’s hold before Nicolo wrapped his arms around him from his front, effectively pinning him between the two men. “Please don't do this to me. I beg you.”

“We are here Sebastien, we are here. Please stop fighting us.” Nicolo murmured, almost in tears himself. 

“You’re not real. I’m dreaming, hallucinating. You’re not here. You can't be, I have seventy-five years, eight months, three weeks and four days left. I can't have you. Your touch. Your hugs. Your presence.”

“You can my darling, you can. I promise you can.” 

Emotionally exhausted, and terrified for their relationship, they laid down in a similar manner to which they had at night. This time the older men knew not to let him wake alone. 

Questions plagued their minds. What had occurred? Why was he so terrified?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lemme know what you think and any way in which I can improve.  
> Thanks for reading!!
> 
> For those of you who are following my other stories, I will update soon, I just have so many ideas and areas of this fandom that I wanna explore!


	2. Chapter 2

When Sebastien woke again, it wasn't too cold sheets and an empty bed, it was too warm caresses and feather-light kisses. 

Contentment. Fantasies. The feeling of content was not real. It would not last. He would open his eyes and the feeling of the bodies pressed against him would disappear. He had the most bizarre dream. Yusuf and Nicolo were in it, the details were blurry, but it would come back to taunt him. They always did. 

Eyes open, green met brown. 

“Are you real?” Sebastien whispered, thinking if he’d speak any louder, the illusion would shatter. 

The answer from the illusion was always the same: “No.” 

But this was different. “Yes,” he replied. “I’m real.”

“How? Why?”

“Hundred years was a rash decision, made when the hurt was still too fresh. Tesoro, we never asked, never realised the extent of your hurt.”

“That is not an excuse for what happened.”

“You did not mean for it to happen, did you?”

Sebastien turned around and looked Nicolo in the eye before asking him in stunned disbelief how he knew that. 

“Copley. He told us the real deal about six months ago when he…”

“When he what?”

“We were drinking after a mission went bad. And fury was coursing through my veins because things would have been much easier if you were there. I hadn’t been sleeping well, none of us were. We were cursing you out when he came by for a debrief. He overheard us and he was shocked.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“If that m*********r hadn’t betrayed us. If he hadn’t been so f*****g selfish. If he’d just sanguinoso talked to us. Quel f*****o stronzo.”

“What do you mean? He betrayed you? Is that why he isn’t around anymore?”

“Why did you think he isn’t around anymore?”

“Because he doesn’t want to be. When I told him about Merrick, he was this close,” Copley held his thumb and index finger half a centimetre apart, “to killing me, because he thought someone was going to hurt you. I persuaded him not to and told him that I would modify the deal with Merrick so that he’d be the only one to be taken. Merrick initially agreed, but changed it at the last minute and blackmailed me. I shouldn't have allowed it, but… there’s no excuse. He told me that he told you the truth and made me swear not to say anything.”

Nicolo was on his feet in a second, gun aimed at the sixty-year-old. Intoxication had not deterred the truth of his aim. Copley raised his hands in surrender, knowing that the former crusader would actually shoot. 

“We have trusted you. We have allowed you to be with us, find us missions, essentially given you Booker’s job, our brother’s job, and you have never once told us, never once admitted that what happened all those years ago was your fault. Never once apologised.” The man was the embodiment of rage. From head to toe. His turned from it’s usual beautiful green to the colour of the sea on a stormy night. He was no fantastical empath, but the whole room was tinging on red. 

A punch landed on his kidney. Andromache. His breath left his body. Was Sebastien had once told him was right, she had forgotten more ways to kill than entire armies would ever learn. 

“Andy, don’t, he is not exactly young any more.”

“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “He made me swear not to say anything. I never asked why. I should have.” 

“Get out.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sebastien opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. His jaw snapped shut with an audible snap. 

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Yusuf gently coaxed. 

The tension in the room was thick enough to be cut with Yusuf’s scimitar. 

“I tried… but you weren’t listening. And if… I wasn’t so weak… so desperate to die… it wouldn't have happened.”

“When did you try?” Yusuf asked. 

“That night, after… after we escaped. I tried to speak, but you kept talking over me, ignoring me. Finally, you said that my excuses could wait till tomorrow and I knew that you weren’t going to believe anything I said.”

Yusuf closed his eyes. His anger was truly a curse. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, regret obvious on his face. His anger had cost him so, so much. Nine hundred years and yet this one facet of him, one aspect of him had not changed. 

“You had a right to anger, Yusuf.” Turning his despondent eyes, begging for mercy, for intimacy, to Nicolo. Sebastien’s jaw was shaking with the effort of holding his tears back as he said, “I’m sorry. I’m going to go now. I still have seventy-five years.” 

Before the two older men could stop him, Sebastien got up, picked up his bag and had leapt out the window. 

“SEBASTIEN! Stop! Don’t go.”  
It was no use, adrenaline fueling his veins and his long legs giving him an advantage in speed. No one in that house had any chance of catching up to him. 

\---------------

“What the hell did you say to him? I thought you wanted him to stay!” Andromache yelled.

“We were talking, and then he said that he had seventy-five years left, picked up his bag and jumped out the window.” Tears were streaming down Yusuf’s face as he recounted the events that led to Sebastien leaving.

"Didn't you explain about-"

"Copley? Yeah, we did."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it's a little short. Hope you liked it. If you have any advice on how to improve, please lemme know!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo.... this chapter is finally up.... 
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!

Sebastien was a master of disguise in the modern world. He had the aptitude and the experience of bending technology to his will. For that very reason, he could disappear without a trace. 

However, he did leave traces. Many traces. Thinking, hoping, praying that his family truly wanted him back and would scrutinise every little clue he left them. 

And they did. It was difficult for none of the rest of them had the same knack for technology that Sebastien displayed. 

They investigated any clue that Sebastien could have left them, knowing that if he wanted to disappear, truly disappear, not even the most talented, most natural, most experienced hacker would be able to find him. 

After six months of searching, they gave in and asked Copley for help, making it very clear that he was still in the doghouse. 

Copley enlisted the help of some of his former CIA colleagues, who were happy to help, so long as the Guard worked for them till their man was found. 

Desperate to find their wayward third, Nicolo and Yusuf persuaded the three women to agree. 

Nile took surprisingly little persuasion. Quynh was happy to do what Andromache wanted and Andromache, well, she was difficult to exhort. Finally, she agreed to work for the CIA as long as their methods were not questioned and their work not filmed. 

Reluctantly, the CIA conceded. 

Even with the world's best hackers, trackers and technological experts on the case, it took them nearly a year to find a solid lead. 

-lex- 

Guns drawn, the team made their way through the partially opened door. 

They were wary of what they would see behind it. It had been almost two years since they had seen Sebastien. 

Sitting behind a desk, in front of a computer was the very man they had been hunting. 

He was asleep. A look of peace spread across his face. He had known they were coming. 

He seemed to have put on some weight since the last time they had seen him. Nicolo and Yusuf were glad. They had been worrying almost continually about whether their Sebastien had been eating or not. If he’d been taking care of himself or had just given up. 

The fact that he’d been nourishing himself gave them hope that he was better. That he was happy to be alive. 

Before the exile, he’d only eaten when forced, drank water when cajoled and slept when drunk. But now he seemed to be healthier.

They just hoped that it meant that he was happier too. 

Dropping his weapons to the floor, as silently as he could, Joe went towards Sebastien’s lax form and picked him up. One arm under his shoulder blades and the other supporting his knees. 

Sebastien was much larger than him, so he stumbled a few steps before regaining his balance and walking sturdily to the cot. Gently placing Sebastien in it, he swept away a lock of hair from his lover’s face. 

Sebastien was neither a very heavy nor a light sleeper, now that he had gone off the drink. He did not wake when his team entered the room but did wake when he felt himself in someone’s arms and when that someone stumbled, he knew it was Yusuf.

Inhaling the scent of one of the men that he’d spent the last century pining over, he knew that could never leave his arms again. He hoped that he would never give them cause to again. 

He laid silent and still on the cot for a few moments more. Once he felt Yusuf’s hand leave his face he pretended to slowly blink awake. 

Sitting up and rubbing his eyes with one hand he smiled. A true smile. His eyes lit up and shone. 

“You came for me… I believe you now.”

Then he felt Nicolo’s lips on his and Yusuf’s hands in his hair. 

He knew he had received what he had spent so long coveting; affection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think and if there is any way I can improve!


End file.
